


I Believe in Yesterday

by cero_ate



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:43:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cero_ate/pseuds/cero_ate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John visits Sherlock. Reaction fic to Reichenbach Falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Believe in Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to Pervyficgirl for the beta

John never brought flowers when he visited. There wasn’t a point. Sherlock didn’t care for flowers.  He wouldn’t want his grave junked up by them.

Instead John followed the tradition he’d seen while in the Middle East, of leaving a pebble every time he went for a chat.  He thought Sherlock would appreciate it more. Different pebbles each time, from different parts of London, the world. Whenever he went further afield than usual, or just knew he was going to be visiting, he picked up a new one.

The first was just one from in front of 221B, then after that, NSY. He stole one from the Diogenes club after Mycroft had been particularly irritating. Visiting Harry in Scotland, he picked up several more, from the Lowlands, from the Highlands, and doled them out, visit to visit.

He found the pebbles were a good way to force himself to travel, instead of simply stay at this flat. Not home, home was 221B Baker Street, but he didn’t, couldn’t live there anymore.

 He wondered what Sherlock would make of each pebble.  Would he deduce where each one came from?

He didn’t believe for a minute that Sherlock lied to him.It didn’t make sense. Why would Sherlock take the time to research a random army doctor that he didn’t even know? Least of all leave it in his memory hard drive for any length of time, cluttering up the place. He’d seen too many times of Sherlock figuring people out, to believe Sherlock’s last lie.  
   
Sometimes he brought a thermos of tea. He didn’t leave the tea, of course. Sometimes he brought a newspaper, talked over the interesting cases, tried to guess, to deduce what he would have said. What rating each new murder would have rated.  
A lot of times he came to just talk. He got over the anger after a while. Stages of grief and all that.  He noticed he seemed to be stuck in denial. Couldn’t progress, the therapist said. John didn’t want to progress, not really. That would mean moving into acceptance. Oh he got out, was dating a nice girl named Mary but the time just didn’t quite seem right yet. She was lovely, everything he envisioned he wanted, he supposed. But…  
   
He could almost hear Sherlock, telling him obviously she was a rebound girlfriend, and he should know better than to date anyone or make any other serious plans for at least a year after a traumatic event.  Well, not Sherlock no, Sherlock would have deduced Mary to be a fourth grade teacher, wondered at John’s propensity to go for teachers, mused that at least Mary wasn’t quite as boring as Jeannette and informed John that she was formerly engaged and currently living with her aging parents, in the least tactful way possible.

Mycroft was the one who had informed John she was a rebound girlfriend, and he should have started dating her at least six months from current time. He’d debated stealing an ashtray from the club for that. He was a member now. Understood the value of silence, of being somewhere where people didn’t force him to talk. Took a perverse delight in showing up at the posh club wearing his jeans, jumper and patched leather jacket, instead of the very proper suits everyone else wore. Read his paper, wrote reams and reams of stories, trying to remember  everything, every last detail.  If he was in there, no one bothered him. No one could, except Mycroft, and at least Mycroft kept him busy.  Mycroft never did like legwork, and John was trained by the best to be what the Holmes boys needed.

He knew he should leave the battlefield, but as Mycroft had so aptly observed,  he missed it too much to leave. And now, well…he didn’t have any reason to want to leave it. He wasn’t the type who would have the picket fence, the two kids, a dog, any of that. He had seen enough to know that he’d seen far too much. He didn’t have anything left to give anyone.  He’d been so alone, and he was alone now. Just one man in a crowd.  
He always started on the edge of the grave but by the time he finished the talk, he was right at the headstone, and he always finished the same way. Touched the stone, dropped the pebble, this time from San Francisco, where he’d gone for a conference, then a snap to attention, and a precise quarter turn before he walked off.  Don’t be dead, please Sherlock? One more miracle, magic trick, whatever he wanted to call it. Just…Don’t be dead.


End file.
